Category: Daily updates

Generally musings of the day, usually accompanied by a photograph

July-August

My comprehensive exam in Canadian politics is now a month away.

There is still quite a bit of work to be done on the 350 divestment brief, and I still have essentially all of my Canadian politics final paper to write. I have had a couple of research consultations with U of T librarians about federalism and climate change in Canada and, while the subject seems a rich one for research, it does seem like a lot of effort will be required to turn that promise into a paper.

Next Saturday I will be making a quick dash to Ottawa for Andrea’s wedding, returning the next morning. Hopefully, I will be able to read productively during both bus rides.

Entering July

In preparation for my comp on August 22nd, I am reading Sylvia Bashevkin’s 2002 book on “Welfare Hot Buttons”. My general plan is to exhaust the reading list in areas of particular interest — including environmental and aboriginal politics — and to do as much reading as possible that will be applicable to both the comp and my ongoing research project for my Canadian politics core seminar.

For 350, I am mostly working on filling in gaps in the brief, incorporating text and citations that have been submitted to me by others, and continuing with the process of proofreading and formatting.

Some photographic projects are also on the go. My iMac hard drive is now as full as it can be without crippling performance, so I am using my laptop as a fallback. My plan is to earn $600—$700 by doing some photographic projects and then to buy a used Mac Pro to use as a fileserver. Four drive bays with 2TB drives should enable me to keep storing RAW files for a good while yet.

What Toronto350.org is up to

We are quite busy this summer. We are working on finalizing our brief to the University of Toronto, making the case for why they should divest from fossil fuels. We could definitely use some expert assistance for some of the legal and financial sections, so if you know any lawyers or financial professionals who would be willing to have a look for us and make some suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

We are also taking part in the National Energy Board process on the reversal of the Enbridge Line 9 pipeline to carry diluted bitumen east. We have been accepted as a commenter, and will be providing written evidence in early August.

With the sponsorship of Toronto’s Pure+ Simple spas, we are also holding a massive screening of the film Do the Math on October 9th. It will be at the Bloor Cinema, which seats 700, and there will be two shows at 6:30pm and 8:30pm respectively. We are working to line up some exciting speakers, as well as food and beverage sponsors.

Finally, we are gearing up for a big recruitment drive at the beginning of the school year in September. We will be working to get the 300 endorsements we need for the completed brief, as well as swelling our ranks of supporters and volunteers.

Time management between terms

While it can be overwhelming at times, I think school during term-time sets a good tempo for life overall.

By contrast, working in a job that can be expected to continue indefinitely lacks contrast and rhythm; it risks becoming a dispiriting grind.

Totally unstructured time, on the other hand, is rarely as good for advancing long-term projects as a person might hope. It’s the inflexible dedicated blocks in a schedule that lend structure to everything that happens around them. With few or no time-specific commitments, one’s schedule has a tendency to get flabby, low priority activities can end up occupying an unjustified amount of attention, and sustained forward motion on important projects can be hard to sustain.

Moving

Yesterday, I got back from a quick trip to say goodbye to my brother Sasha who is leaving Montreal and to see a piano recital of his there.

Tonight, I am moving my things out of Massey College. On May 9th, I will be moving into Morrison Hall for the summer – just a block away from here.

I am finally done with nearly all my coursework and TA work. I just need to write one more term paper, prepare for my comprehensive exam, and find a source of income for the summer.